A few changes came out after this, which haven’t been officially posted:

Cyclone range was reduced to 25 yards, but now the Balance/Restoration Druid PvP Gloves yet again increase range by 5 yards.

I’m excited if Starfall not breaking CC actually works.

For nostalgia, here’s a hotfix that was applied back on July 1st, 2011:

Starfall is no longer hitting targets that are within 40 yards if they are not in combat with the druid or his/her party/raid members. It is targeting all hostile characters in combat with the druid’s party/raid members, is not hitting Stealth characters, is not breaking crowd control effects, and is not targeting nearby critters.

At first, after reading the 4.3 patch notes, I was a bit disappointed there was nothing for balance druids. Reports are coming from the 4.3 PTR however that Wrath, along with other spells, now have a new animation. There are also reports of Starfall being changed.

The change looks much more Solar like then nature. Also, it appears the travel time has been increased.

Skip to 2:20 on this video for the Wrath animation.

Here’s another video I found on YouTube. Not sure who to credit it to, nor who’s doing the narration.

At first, after reading the 4.3 patch notes, I was a bit disappointed there was nothing for balance druids. Reports are coming from the 4.3 PTR however that Wrath, along with other spells, now have a new animation. There are also reports of Starfall being changed.

The change looks much more Solar like then nature. Also, it appears the travel time has been increased.

A few hotfixes went in today. One you’ll be happy with, one… not so much.

It is no longer possible to cancel Lunar Shower by right-clicking the buff, or canceling it via a macro.

Starfall is no longer hitting targets that are within 40 yards if they are not in combat with the druid or his/her party/raid members. It is targeting all hostile characters in combat with the druid’s party/raid members, is not hitting Stealth characters, is not breaking crowd control effects, and is not targeting nearby critters.

The change to Lunar Showers even further clarifies how useless the talent is now. As for Starfall, thank god they fixed it. Also glad to see it ignores CC.

An undocumented “change” that I’ve noticed:

The game now is apparently smart, and if you have 0 Energy, it’ll cancel the Eclipse buff as soon as you cast something. This is overtly annoying as your lunar/solar energy is set to 0 whenever you change zones. To test this, acquire Solar Eclipse and then relog. When you log in, you’ll have Solar Eclipse. As soon as you sunfire a mob, the Eclipse is gone.

This wouldn’t be so annoying if Blizzard managed to preserve your lunar/solar energy whenever you changed zones or relogged.

Starfall will no longer strike targets that are not in combat and will now drop stars at a slightly faster rate.

Wild Mushroom is now instant cast, down from 0.5 seconds. In addition, the radius of detonation has been increased to 6 yards, up from 3, and damage done increased by 30%.

The fungal growth seems like it’s going to be our new main staple for snaring / slowing people on the run. The Moonkin Form change is a nice buff for damage from spellcasters, but really still does nothing when we’re rooted in frost nova being shattered by a frost mage. The starfall buff is GREAT for dungeons. The Wild Mushroom buff is an additional 15% from it’s previously stated 15% buff.

Also, Zarhym hints that while Balance druids will not be able to get ‘Entanglement’ which removes roots when shapeshifting, there are other plans that will be released after the holiday weekend.

Ghostcrawler responded to a complaint about a “stealth nerf” for Starfall, saying it has not been nerfed since it went live. He did admit, however, that the final live co-efficients are lower then what he initially posted the would be.

“At some point I posted some numbers for Starfall since there hadn’t been a PTR build in some time and druids were chomping at the bit to figure out just how much damage it was going to do. The numbers we went with for 3.3.3 were slightly lower than that if I recall correctly, but we haven’t made any changes to Starfall since the patch went live. The live Starfall numbers are still much higher than they were in 3.3.

We generally don’t try to execute actual “stealth nerfs.” The community will nearly always figure it out anyway so we don’y gain much by trying to hide anything. Sometimes “stealth nerfs” are just things we didn’t manage to document, but many times they are misunderstandings.

(I’m talking about live anyway. On betas and PTRs numbers are going to change quite a bit — that’s the whole idea.)“

Squawkbox

Latest on Mon, 08:16 am

Athosian: @Thravia - at 16.5k crit u can effectively stack mastery. But.. you must have the T16 4set in order to not loose out on procs.

Thravia: Hi Sunfyre.
According to all my calculations, and simulationcrafts, mastery is better than both haste and crit, and especially better than haste once you get past the GCD cap - so why are all balance druids going full on with crit/haste?
I am having trouble figuring out what is most effective, and I am currently creating a BiS list for 5.4, but I don't know if I should go with a mastery/haste build, or crit/haste.
Here is a chart of my stat weights, http://i.imgur.com/lQMfnFV.png (I am currently at 10300 haste, 16000 crit, and 547 item level)

Kogot: Hey! Just wanted to say thanks for having this page! I love it!

Sunfyre: Thravia: Not sure. I'm curious how this interacts with the nerf. If it's 8% on all targets, that'd be nice.

Sunfyre: Quiver: I'd stick with the lower BP until you can comfortably hit the higher one without sacrificing too much crit.

Thravia: Hi Sunfyre. Whats your thougths on the new T16 set bonus? It's been changed again.

Quiver: Hi Sunfyre!
I am low ilvl Boomkin (around 517). After getting the 1st haste breakpoint(5273) i started stacking as much crit as possible. If i squeeze my gear, i can get to the 2nd haste breakpoint (10296); now, my question is: should i somewhat neglect crit and go for that 2nd haste plateau?
Thanks in advance!

Manax: Hello Sunfyre, do you think balance druids one of the worst dps classes in mop? I mean... look at worldoflogs, there are no balance druids in the top dps sections at no boss. Always WL, Mages or hunter that are good on ranged bosses. And AOE dps poor too, compared to other classes. What do you think?

Sunfyre: It depends if you have RPPM proc'd items. If you have two RPPM items (or just the legendary meta), you'll want to do the pre-Solar start (and you immediately proc CA once you hit Solar).

Nodotx: Sunfyre, is one channelling pulse towards Lunar still the ideal opener? i.e. Starfall > Wrath > Lunar Eclipse?
I saw this reply recently on a thread:
"I'm not sure why OP still says start fight pre-lunar, long time ago I switched to Solar eclipse.
I pre pot, starfall, (one dot), CA + INCA (or 3x treants), dotting (by this time most if not all procs are up- both dots AND treants enjoy it) and starifre\ss, starfall again.
when u leave CA u auto moving to lunar eclipse- which get u 3rd starfall.
with the old opner, Until u enter lunar, and starfire\ss to 0 energy and poping ca- most procs are pretty much over :P"